While flying a heli at slow speeds how do you make a smooth turn and change direction at the same time . I can change directions when the heli is tail in but when side on, I loose forward speed when I go to make a turn. I have the heli setup for hovering should I add a little forward trim for flying circuits??? Figure 8's are a big problem too......

I wouldn't add any fwd trim to obtain FF. Practice your positional hovering and get it down solid before you attempt FF. This way when you start to get into FF and you find yourself out of orientation, hopefully you won't panic and you'll feel comfortable correcting. As far as smooth turns, its my opinion that it comes with practice, collective management, knowing if your turning the heli into the wind or downwind, and also feeling comfortable with your heli at 90 degrees facing in both directions.

Burn more gas, and practice, practice, practice that positional hovering, it will definately help in the long run.

Good Luck !

AlanR8, nice site, great info !!!

Gaui Greatness X7, X5, NX4, X3

Alan8r that is a great article for starting ff....... I guess it's time to get back on the sim and figure this thing out. I don't have a Tx with idle up and all the bling yet, so I think I need to take some gyro out on the sim program when I go to ff. I'll set up a seperate heli just for that with less gyro hold.
Thanks,
Tom

Thanks guys, feedback's always good!

Smooth turns come with practice.

It takes a combination of collective management, cyclic control, and coordination of rudder with the turns. It is important to use both thunbs when flying a helicopter. If you're a converted plank flyer, you most likely forget that you have a left thumb, except when it's necessary to move the throttle.

If you don't coordinate rudder in a turn, especially a tigter turn where the heli is banked quite a bit, the tail boom will tend to rotate towards the ground, and the heli will act as if it is going to fall out of the air, tail first. It won't track as if it were on rails. Add some rudder in your turns to keep the heli tracking the arc of the turn, you will suddenly smooth out your turns and have much better control of the heli.

Oh men do I know what you mean...

I find autos and piruettes alot easier than doing smooth turns. Seems I have a lazy left thumb...

In my case I think I got a mental block because at the beginning I used to turn the tail very well. One day I did a sliding turn and gave too much rudder and the heli imediately showed his nose to me (saying HI! ) since I never did any nose in at that time I turned the tail around and everything was fine but I got scared to death.

Practicing on Reflex doesn't help either since you barely use any rudder at high speed maneuvers and its very easy to transit to FFF flight without you noticing it

I think the trick is to:

1. make sure tail is higher than nose before initiating the turn
2. lead with aileron (bank it to the side you want) and start to turn the tail around while you keep giving small aft elevator inputs to maintaining the heli in a stable position
3. I recomend to increase collective if you are turning into the wind or decreasing if you turning with the wind right before you start the turn. If you feel confortable you may do this during the turn.

As I said... I know the theory but at the field the story is totally different.

Cheers
Tony

--------------------"Perfection and patience usually walk side by side..."